Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. I was often a mix of relieved and stressed by this time in Lent– relieved that most of the forty days were behind us, stressed by the prospect of the daily prep and services yet to come, all the way through Easter morning.
Now? I am ambivalent about the whole thing. I don’t have any desire to go to church today and participate in a lifeless reenactment of an event that may or may not have ever happened. Even when I was leading worship, I was often wondering why we were doing the Procession with Palms—raising a palm frond in one hand while trying to follow the words of the Entrance Hymn on a piece of paper in the other, feigning joy and excitement, concerned that people would be distracted and upset because they might not get to sit in their usual spots. The whole thing seemed, at best, unwieldy and impractical, and at worst, half-hearted and embarrassing.
A paltry effort most were doing by rote, maybe even reluctantly.
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